Karen Commins

The business of voice-over is on my mind after vacation

19 October 2006

Drew and I have been on vacation for almost 3 weeks on a wonderful Greek Islands cruise. During the trip, we visited Greece, Egypt, Turkey and Paris. If you’re interested, you can look at our awesome photo album/scrapbook that we created with Drew’s amazing pictures at Shutterfly, the best company for photo processing and related products that you can imagine.

Even though I was on a fabulous vacation, I never stopped thinking of ways to progress my voice-over business. I have some stories to relate at another time. Today, though, I wanted to tell you about something that was awaiting me in the mail upon my arrival home: my copy of Pat Fraley’s new book: The Gypsy’s Guide to The Business of Voice-Over.

I have taken classes with Pat and his business partner Hillary Huber, and I think I have a copy of everything he has published. Since I don’t live in LA, I take every opportunity to drink at the well of this master’s fountain of knowledge. I find the real value of this latest book to be in the CD that accompanies it. Pat and Hillary entertain and inform you on the CD just as if you were sitting in one of their voice-over classes. They cover the text in the book so that you can hear the material while commuting to your next voice-over gig.

Among other material covered, our delightful teachers succinctly differentiate the key concepts of brandingand style, and they play some excellent demos to illustrate their points. However, guest interviews on the CD with Kristine Oller and D. B. Cooper provide key information not included in the book. Kristine Oller’s comments about focus are something that every voice artist should hear and act upon.

Sometimes, we don’t know what to do. Sometimes, we know what to do but don’t do it. By repeatedly listening to Pat and Hillary and their guests on the The Gypsy’s Guide to The Business of Voice-Over, I have a feeling that it will be easier for me to do all the right things to improve my voice-over business in the future.

In my opening paragraph, I linked to our Shutterfly vacation photobook. As promotion is one thing discussed rather heavily in Pat’s book, I realized I could mention that I have successfully used Shutterfly products in promoting my voice-over business. Like favorite teachers Pat and Hillary, I can’t say enough good things about that company! They have a tremendous array of products, great prices and exceptionally fast delivery. If you can put a photo on something, you can also put your logo on it! Just think of the possibilities for personal branding and promotion!

Paint the picture of your voice-over success in your mind

21 September 2006

—–Forwarded Message—–
From: The Universe
Sent: Sep 20, 2006 3:21 AM
Subject: TUT… A Note from the Universe
If it were fun and easy, would you do it?
If the pay was out of this world; more than you could ever spend?
If signing your autograph and being adored by fans never got old, and you truly relished retelling your story again and again?
Brilliant, Karen, because all of the above can be imagined whenever you visualize.
You are just ace –
The Universe

Mike Dooley is the creative genius behind these weekday e-mails signed from The Universe. Many times, I receive a message that is uncannily on target with things that are occurring in my life. I especially wanted to talk about the importance of yesterday’s message because I think many people don’t understand the importance of visualizing their success prior to its appearance.

Athletes who win the big championship game will tell you that they have scored the winning points a thousand times in their minds before ever playing the game. Musicians know that to play beautifully on stage, they must first consistently create strong mental pictures of themselves walking confidently before an adoring crowd. The value of visualization is true for voice-over artists or anything else that you want to achieve in your life.

If you don’t know what you want, how do you expect to attain it?

Visualization works for all sorts of scenarios, large and small. I use visualization techniques for everything, but particularly for guiding my voice-over career. In voice-over, you always want to have a picture of your audience in your mind. You want to see that one person’s face and respond to their emotion. If I feel nervous about an audition, I concentrate on the positive outcome that I want to achieve. Before attending a networking event, I picture all of the friendly people I will meet who are working on exciting documentaries, training modules and audiobooks that might be enhanced with my voice.

On a larger scale, Wayne Dyer states that

The state of your life
is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.

I have written my goals for my voice-over business. I spend time each day reviewing those goals and sometimes even rewriting them. I learned long ago that it’s not enough to say that I want to be a working voice-over actor. That sentence could mean I have one low-paying job a year, but I’d be working. It’s like when you’re in a hotel and calling room service. You don’t call them and say “please bring some food” or, worse, “I have no idea why I picked up the phone and called you. I want something, but I have no idea what I want, what you provide or what I’m doing here.” If they didn’t hang up on you (which they might in scenario number two), they could bring you a cracker when you were salivating for a steak.

My daily routine now includes imagining what it will be like when my stellar voice-over goals have been met. I actually see myself doing specific things, being in certain places and owning certain things, having a precise amount of money in the bank, interacting with particular people, etc.

I don’t question how all of these things will happen. My job is to figure out what I want in my life, and it’s up to the Universe to figure out how to serve it up to me. Because I have so frequently visualized where I want to go in my voice-over career, I find that I am constantly thinking of creative ways to analyze a company’s problem or potential opportunities, approach them and cast myself into projects that I desire rather than passively waiting for casting through traditional audition processes.

Visualization is key to creating reality as you want it. The best thing about it, though, is that your new reality is always better than anything you could have dreamed possible!

If you think you don’t know how to visualize and harvest the fertile ground of your imagination, I heartily recommend the following resources to help jump-start your creative engine:

How will you use your next 24 hours?

12 September 2006

Gone With the Wind is my favorite movie of all time. I could give so many reasons for liking it, but you would wonder why I thought about it today when this is a blog about voice-over. True, I was born and live in Atlanta, but a ride on public transportation to downtown Atlanta this morning actually reminded me of something in the movie.

Remember the big scene early in the film at the magnificent Twelve Oaks estate, where everyone went for the barbeque? The camera panned to a sign on the grounds that said:

Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

No matter where I go, I always have things with me to advance my voice-over goals. I press any spare time into service. On the way to my appointment this morning, I studied background material for a major audition. Other times, I may:

read books for upcoming audiobooks
read marketing books
write blog ideas and entries (sometimes jot the ideas in my PDA, other times write longer sentences by longhand)
plan marketing strategies
listen to audiobooks and podcasts on my iPod
listen to accents, dialects and foreign languages on my iPod (I have loaded Spanish and French CDs, and I have Italian and German CDs ready to be loaded.)
make notes about the podcast show that I am developing
write in my journal

In addition, my PDA cell phone is a Pocket PC, so I can surf the web and get e-mail anywhere. I can read my voice-over newsgroups and blogs while commuting. I also can respond to inquiries about projects and review web sites of prospective companies. Time spent on public transportation or in places like a doctor’s waiting room are always highly productive for me.

Whenever I ride public transportation, I have noticed that a majority of people get on board clutching their cell phones like Linus from the Peanuts cartoon clutched his security blanket.

I have observed that an incredible number of people are chronic cell phone abusers. Even at 7:00am, a girl sitting near me felt the overwhelming compulsion to call someone! She continued her conversation for the entire 40-minute trip; she was still talking when I left the bus.

Riding public transportation in the afternoons is like walking into the stock market, with everyone laughing and shouting into their phones as though they are the only people who exist on the planet. Aside from the fact that no one else around wants to hear these inane conversations — especially at 7:00am! — I have some advice for those of you who are serious about your careers in voice-over.

Hang up the phone.

Think of it as a golden opportunity to rest your voice.

People reach for their cell phones because they are afraid to be alone with the silence of their own thoughts.

I take notes as I read books, and you may have noticed that I love quotes. From one of the many marketing and publicity books I have read, I wrote down this quote:

Think.
Make time for self-examination.
[in the example of commuters on a train, the author wrote that]
Instead of contemplating something or giving their thoughts free rein,
they get on their cell phones.
Cell phones allow you to have conversations to pass the time
instead of passing the time in actual thought.

When I arrived at my destination building this morning, I got on the elevator with a girl who had a book in her hands. It was titled French in 10 Minutes A Day. I commented on her book, and she proudly told me that she was adding another language to her arsenal. I inquired about her other language skills, and she said she speaks Spanish and Arabic. She obviously is a girl who is going places — and not just in the elevator!

I often hear comments from people that they would love to start their career in voice-over or they want to do more marketing to increase their voice-over jobs, but….they don’t have time. We all have the same number of hours in a day. Since time is your most precious commodity, the question you should ask yourself is:

How do you want to spend your next 24 hours?

Do you think that lack of money is holding you back?

11 September 2006

In the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have..I saw a show on the Biography channel a few days ago about Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their names may not be familiar to you, but I’m sure that you have used their marvelous invention countless times: the Google search engine.

While Google is an Internet mammoth now, I was very impressed to learn about the humble origins of this company. After Page and Brin wrote the code for their search engine, they tried to sell it to other established companies, like Yahoo. No one was interested.

They were so committed to their idea that they decided to form their own company. However, they had a small problem. The computers needed to run their program cost a LOT of money. Rather than giving up on their dream, Page and Brin used hard drives from PCs that were lying around and — get this —

built computer cabinets from Legos!

Obviously, their search grew in popularity, they were able to get financing for proper computers and the rest is history.

What can you take away from their story? Do you put off your dreams of working in voice-over because you don’t have the money to buy the top-tier equipment? If you’re already a voice-over professional, do you criticize yourself or are you constantly unhappy because of equipment or facilities that you don’t have? Or do you create recordings with pride and joy using whatever equipment you have, making your plans for the upgrades that you will enjoy as your business expands?

We often use lack of money as an excuse when our own resistance is the cause of our lack of progress. Nobody said that building a career would be easy. Nobody said that it wouldn’t be scary sometimes. Nobody said you would have all of the answers.

If you follow the words of Rough and Ready Teddy (someone who, by the way, knew the value of persistence), you will find that you can accomplish great and wonderful things just by opening your mind to the rich possibilities at hand. By consistently taking action and moving toward your goals using whatever is available to you at the time, your eventual success will be better than you could have dreamed possible!

Voice-over books on my bookshelf

25 August 2006

When people ask me about starting a career in voice-over, I usually recommend that they first read a book about the voice-over industry. A book is a small investment of time, money and energy to see whether a voice-over career is the right choice for you. I have quite a few books and audio programs. You can never learn too much, and every author has different experiences and viewpoints to relate.

Since I haven’t found time to re-create the static page on the new site with my recommended reading list, I’ve created an Amazon list that features my favorite voice-over books. I even included a few items towards the bottom of the list that I don’t own but will probably add to my library.

Do you find this list and format helpful? I’d love to have your feedback before I make any changes to my site to add a permanent link or create more lists for marketing books, etc.

Voice-Over Days and Talledega Nights

21 August 2006

Most people wouldn’t think that Talledega Nights, Will Ferrell’s recently-released comedy movie about NASCAR racing, would have anything to do with a career in voice-over. However, even though the movie probably wasn’t meant to teach anything, I found a few lessons in it anyway. I promise I won’t give away any surprises from the movie!

1) From the day he was born, Ricky Bobby knew he wanted to go fast. Like so many people who have an inner calling, he didn’t heed it initially. He first worked in a pit crew and had to be urged into taking the driver’s seat. You could also look at his experience another way. He took a job on the pit crew because he did whatever was necessary to be in the environment where his dream job awaited. If you’re an aspiring voice-over artist, you can always ask to volunteer or work in another capacity at your dream location to gain experience.

2) Ricky Bobby was overflowing with confidence about his ability. When he finally got his break into his dream job, he never doubted himself. He continually built upon his successes. He didn’t endlessly analyze how he could have done something better in a race that was already gone. As a voice-over actor, you have to let the past go. Once you do an audition or a job, you need to realize that you did your best and be ready to move on to the next challenge. Looking back only crystallizes your thinking.

3) The hero of the movie surrounded himself with people who believed in him. When the going got tough and he forgot how to believe in himself, Ricky Bobby had people who could remind him of his accomplishments.4) While the premise of the movie was based on competition, I noticed the cooperation between and resulting abundance that flowed to Ricky Bobby and his best friend Cal. They helped each other on the race track and in life. The more you live your life in service to others without expectation of reward, the more the Universe will be your servant.

People will tell you that becoming a voice-over actor, like joining the NASCAR circuit, is an extremely competitive venture with the odds stacked against you. Those who are in computer programming, interior design and basket-weaving would say that their fields are also competitive. Gaining skills sufficient to enter any field takes an investment of time, energy and education, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. If you think that you live in an abundant Universe with more than enough opportunity to go around, you will get your chance. Not every NASCAR driver is right for every race; not every voice is right for every project. We all have talents, gifts and unique personalities that come through in our voices. No one else can see the world in the same way that you can.

5) Don’t run the race for the wrong reasons. So often, people contact me because they have been told they have a nice voice, and they think the logical conclusion is to make money as a voice-over actor. Voice-over is a business like anything else that requires a lot of marketing and ability to take rejection. Ricky Bobby showed us what it’s like to be in business for yourself and because you love what you do. Don’t become a voice-over actor because someone else thinks you should do it, because you think you can make some easy money at it or because you think it sounds like a cool thing to say you do. Become a voice-over actor because you love it.

6) If you’re not first, you’re last is not the best philosophy on which to base a career. Ricky Bobby struggled under the weight of this sentence for most of his career. He later realized that the sentence is completely meaningless! To a voice actor, you could spend lots of time and money to get ranked first on the popular search engines only to discover that your business didn’t increase exponentially like you thought it would. Maybe most of your new business comes when you network in person at industry meetings or send direct mail to your bulging mailing list.

7) Never give up. If you believe in yourself and your talent, you will always keep the finish line in sight!